Back to S_Alexander's Profile S_Alexander's Profile

I watched it after reading the manga. It's a well-made adaptation: art matches, Japanese voice actors do good job, closely follows original.

The plot is shuffled short stories/scenes from manga. Only closer to the end it goes into longer sub-story of art club competition, and that's where it ends. There're couple of factual changes that don't matter much. I guess Nagatoro's size is a little bigger lol.

Biggest change in feel adds music. It's very clearly comedic when in manga (depending on how you imagine it) it could be taken more seriously. Especially in first manga chapters I felt Nagatoro might be genuinely malicious, and it added ... a little spice. Here it made clear that it's all a joke and not to be taken seriously.

Overall I think something is missing, anime is like a point worse than manga. But for others it might be just as good or better.

Very light and cute manga about pretty girl teasing her nerdy senpai. I wouldn't say there's something special about it but it is quite good at what it's trying to do. And it's just fun and enjoyable (for the right people).

Besides the manga there's anime adaptation, prototype web doujins (very different from the manga, not for everyone) and a wholesome short game.

Art is superb. It expresses emotions very well. Details where needed, exaggerated funny faces where needed. You always know the mood of the scene even without reading text. And the detailed stills of Nagatoro where she's just shining from the inside are so damn ... cute.

Chapters feel pretty short and the text is light, it makes it very easy for me to go ahead and read another one. Relaxing light reading.

Plot mostly depicts individual moments, sub-stories and plot points from character's lives without much of an overall plot exactly. But overall manga is going somewhere, slowly, you see characters change, their relationship evolving. To be honest, later stories and plot points feel more stereotypical and standard, and for me some of the charm is lost compared to simpler scenes.

Situations and scenes are funny. Spastic and energetic Nagatoro always comes up with something to throw off balance her senpai. But she also gets embarrassed so it's all very cute. Secondhand embarrassment included but bearable for the most part. Strong "just confess to each other already" feeling.

Do note that first chapters are noticeably rougher in artstyle and bullying. Maybe first 10 or so? Then it becomes more palatable and even somewhat boring.

It's just fun to read these cute stories.

What a sad and depressing story. It is a murder mystery, but really it's about two schoolgirl friends who should be enjoying life and having fun but cruel life just doesn't let them. And the reader is supposed to feel sad because bad things happen to good people. To not spoil anything I'll try to only describe how the manga feels without mentioning anything concrete.

The cruelty of the world and hopelessness conveyed very well. Nothing goes right and despite characters' best efforts the life throws one punch after another.

The art is beautiful and further supports the point above.

The author tries to pull on your heart ... strings. But it's not a boring tear-jerker, it's a murder mystery. So you still get to wonder what actually happened and whether the villains can be brought to justice.

The manga uses a nice technique where the events are shown the second time but with the new context and it changes the way they appear. It's far from Rashomon but good enough.

I liked the ending especially, it gives the closure and leaves the feeling of completeness and fulfillment, throws back to some things. And it's very, very sad. Maybe with floppier ending it wouldn't have the same impact on me.

Another big advantage is that the manga is short and to the point. It doesn't lose the punchiness with filler. It knows the story it wants to tell. Although some might say that it's rushed if they like slower build-up. You won't lose much time by reading it anyway so whatever.

However sometimes the story goes too far with bad things happening to characters, and it stops feeling realistic a little.

Biggest flaw: the logic of the story is kinda far-fetched. It wouldn't quite work out like that in real life and motivations are questionable. I don't think the reader is meant to think too hard about the logic here and just embrace the emotions.

I give a very subjective 10 because the work scratches all the right itches for me.